OK I've lurked here long enough, and I feel compelled to post some thoughts on the game after a disastrous five game session with my brother.
Quick background:
- I only own "Sports Simulation" games. (Realistic) gameplay means the most to me above all else in a game.
- The last PES I owned before now was PES 2011 - I thought it was horrible primarily because players never bothered to make attacking runs, plus the running animations looked so cartoony when compared to NBA 2K11 which I played regularly.
- As I said I play NBA 2K (10-13) as well, but their disregard for strategy in the current iteration has caused me to take a year out. That means I'm looking for a realistic strategy fix from PES 2014. Also for all the praise NBA 2K gets in these parts (usually when bashing PES), the last truly great game they had was 2K11, and they have removed so many key features from the game it's ridiculous. Also it's sim community is far smaller than PES's.
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OK having said all that, this game is really pissing me off. It was great for the first few weeks, but I saw on forums that people were warning about spammed through balls. I didn't notice this at first, as I was just mostly playing professional against the CPU, but after finally getting to Superstar, and especially when I'm playing my brother it's just absolutely ridiculous the accuracy of through balls.
I'm much more of a "simhead" (1 bar passing), so when I see countless wrong offsides given (even against my brother), it irks me and when through balls are being made when IRL that ball would fly out of touch (doesn't matter if Pirlo delivered it), it slowly enrages me. I try to play the "right" way, but my brother (3 bar passing) will exploit something if it gives him an advantage, and so, he pings through balls over the top all game long even when there wasn't even any kind of separation, and the ball will just stop dead enough before the touchline to get to the ball.
I've tried playing as deep as possible with no frontline pressure whatsoever, I've tried snapping at his heels giving him no time (but of course he just turns me and no one covers for me), a combination of the two - it just doesn't work. The only thing that has worked is man marking all the attacking players. But even that he somehow has managed to break. Meanwhile, I don't spam through balls, I'm looking for a clear opportunity, and it's so much harder for me, and he's not doing anything special defensively. Only last week I was thrashing him (including a couple of 7-1's), and now I've managed to lose five in a row.
50-50 balls fall to him at a miraculously high rate.
Lack of fouls puts me at a big advantage, as I play fairly, while he has no problem with injuring my players and at most getting a yellow for it. The little fouls are what really kill my team though, players can just come up from behind to take the ball (when IRL they have no right to do that), and the inconsistent refereeing severely unbalances the game. People trying to play like Barcelona online, have no chance trying to keep possession in tight areas with that BS going on.
Player awareness especially when defending is poor. If I'm controlling Evra and chasing Walcott who's sprinting down the wing and about to cross into the box, I don't want Ferdinand or Vidic coming to close down Walcott as well, especially since I haven't even pressed the Pressure 2 button. It can just leave an easy tap in for an oncoming attacker.
I don't know what kind of gamers Konami thinks play football with the control scheme they have for triggering a run. Why can't I just hit one button to make a player make an intelligent run, and not just straight forwards, at angles too, and not all at one speed either (that's too predictable). I don't know about everyone else, but I think asking me to press LB and then flicking the RS towards the player that I want to start running, while I still have to dribble and possibly protect the ball with the passer, is asking too much. Why can't players have tendencies like in 2K? It's ridiculous playing against North Korea on Superstar with England, and their midfielders are doing advanced tricks. Sometimes it's like watching a FIFA online match the regularity at which the CPU pulls off out-of-context dribble moves with players who never even use them.
Defenders who get tight on their man get turned way to easily, which is especially horrible if that defender is a CB. The turning animation when seeing an oncoming ball is Titus Bramblesque, they instantly make it a one-on-one for the striker.
PES 2014 cannot run off the same commands of 2013 because the entire animations, physics and collision engine is different, so it has to be reprogrammed again. 
